A selective introduction of competitive courses in learning field

Selective Preparation Knowledge for Advanced Mathematics

This course covers six areas, including derivative and differential, integral, probability and statistics, space analytical geometry, determinant and matrix, and vector. The above content is an extension of preliminary mathematics, such as the application of space analytical geometry, determinant and matrix, and vector; or the basic knowledge for college mathematics, such as derivative and differential, integral. This course mainly deals with the connection between high school mathematics and college mathematics. The difficulty and teaching is adapted to fit the high school students. Thus, students tend to form a better and deeper idea of high school mathematics.

The content of this course is closely connected with the compulsory content for students who are going for further study. For those capable students with a strong interest in mathematics, this course gives them chances to learn more about mathematics.

The course uses Selective Preparation Knowledge for Advanced Mathematics, which was compiled by XU Yuecan, WANG Hong, YU Huiying and QIU Yan from SHS and published by Shanghai Social Science Press in 2005.

Required Reading of Ancient Poetry and Essays at High School

To inherit and build on our excellent national traditions and cultures, students should have a good understanding on our ancient poetry and essays in order to make the past serve the present. Therefore, SHS started “required reading of ancient poetry and essays at high school” course. This course is arranged on the basis of the history of Chinese classic literatures and representative works of famous writers, including various poems and essays. With the teachers’ detailed analysis and inspiring teaching, students learn to appreciate classics. Students are supposed to improve their reading comprehension in ancient poetry and essays, to form independent thinking and self-study habit. Their sentiment qualities, literary qualities and expression qualities will be further improved after learning how to appreciate these classics.

The textbook of this course, Required Reading of Ancient Poetry and Essays at High School, was compiled by CHEN Hong, ZHANG Wuyun, SUN Peiren and FAN Biao from SHS, and published by Shanghai Social Science Press in 2005.

A Brief History of Chemistry Development

This course falls into the category of horizon-broadening and development types, targeting at those Grade 10 students who are interested in learning the history and mastering the basic research methodology in chemistry. For high school students, learning the chemistry history does good to their overall qualities improvement. There are two targets: first of all, students are introduced to important persons and milestone events in the development of chemistry; to understand the contribution of chemistry in social development; to appreciate chemists’ efforts in pursuit of the truth; to develop social responsibilities and active attitudes. Secondly, students are introduced to understand the brief history of chemistry methodology, to learn the observation and experiment methods in chemistry, to attempt the inference method, to experience the importance of logical analysis, and to understand the methodology of hypotheses and models.

Talking about Chemistry from Cooking Green Plum Wine — A Brief History of Chemistry Development, written by JIANG Yiming, was published by Shanghai Science and Technology Press in 2011. This book is applied as the school textbook for this course. The book took high school students’ age characters and cognitive level into consideration, and also learned the concepts from American materials, which conformed to the times and readability and was worth students’ further researches within the limited practice.

A Preliminary Attempt in Organic Synthesis in Chemistry

Organic synthesis is a process in which complex organic compounds are produced from simple molecules through formation of carbon-carbon bonds and conversion of functional groups. This course is full of strong creativity. It targets at capable Grade 11 students, who show great interest in chemistry. The course aims to introduce concepts of organic synthesis, like substitution, addition, oxidation, and reduction, which enables students to learn some fundamental knowledge of this field and to master certain experiment skills after training courses.

Mastering those basic concepts in organic chemistry enables students to form a systematic and comprehensive knowledge. Students learn those basic knowledge and theory; they develop their abilities in solving and analyzing problems, laying a good foundation for their further study in this area. The tentative experiments fully inspire and encourage students to develop scientific attitudes and healthy mentality towards experiments. Besides, linking SHS “Nurturing Innovative Competences Education Program”, our school is equipped with advanced laboratory equipment with high accuracy and preciseness. Students are supposed to learn these new equipments.

After years of implementation experiences, we compiled and published A Preliminary Attempt in Organic Synthesis in Chemistry (written by HUANG Feng, and published by Shanghai Science and Technology Press in 2011). This book is the textbook for this course.

Appreciating Prose of the Ming and the Qing Dynasty

Prose of the Ming and the Qing Dynasty might not as highly reputated as Selected Readings of Confucian and other Ancient Chinese Classics or eight prose masters of the Tang-Song period, but it has its own characters. Hereby, a course to appreciate prose of the Ming and the Qing Dynasty is specially designed. More than 20 proses were selected. They are shorter but more clear, and easy for comprehension. As a developmental course, it opens another field for high school students to appreciate the Chinese ancient literature.

The content of this course covers a wide range of representative works in this period. Besides, students are given many extensive reading materials for their off-school reading.

The textbook of this course is compiled by FAN Xinqiang from SHS, titled A Bunch of Flowers in the Corner — Appreciating Prose of the Ming and the Qing Dynasty, which was published by Shanghai Science and Technology Press in 2011.

Picking up Precious Shells in the Philosophical Sea

Due to the limited area within the current Shanghai textbooks, there is only a small portion of philosophy mentioned. Introductions about philosophers and their theories are also very limited. Therefore, SHS opens a course, named picking up precious shells in the philosophical sea, as a supplementary course for philosophy. We are trying to tell students whatever philosophical thoughts they are, they were remembered because they are the elites of their times. Through this course, students get to know what kind of course philosophy is, what problems philosophy attempts to solve; thus, students’ interest in this field might be aroused; their philosophical thinking be inspired; their understanding of how philosophy affects human beings’ daily life be deepened.

The teaching material of this course has been used for several years, and now a book was compiled by CHEN QI, titled Picking up Shells in the Philosophical Sea. It was published by Shanghai Science and Technology Press in 2011.